The Pakistani Twitter-sphere today saw the prime minister’s daughter being schooled by two Pulitzer prize-winning journalists on the true nature and global impact of the Panama Papers scandal.
In a bid to ‘cleanse’ her family’s name of the Panama Papers controversy, Maryam Nawaz had taken to Twitter Tuesday evening to share her thoughts.
She claimed the Panama Papers, which rocked some of the most powerful public office holders in several countries, had been “trashed in the rest of the world”.
She doubled down on that statement by tweeting that the scandal was “never about corruption”.
Unexpectedly, Bastian Obermayer – a Pulitzer-winning journalist from German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung who was the first to receive the Panama Papers and who eventually took the lead in breaking the story internationally – stepped in at that point to set the record straight.
“Sorry to tell you,” he said, “[but the] Panama papers ARE about corruption.”
Maryam retorted saying that the “misery of the journalists” who broke the Panama story “is understandable”.
She also expressed regret over what she alleged was a “nexus” between the Panama Papers journalists and their “Pakistani counterparts” and said it was “sad that they became a part of conspiracy against Pakistan”.
Obermayer responded by giving her some perspective on what journalism is about and what the scope of the Panama Papers actually was:
Minutes later, Frederik Obermaier, another Pulitzer-winning journalist who worked on the Panama Papers and who co-authored the authoritative book on the international scandal with Bastian Obermayer, joined the conversation.
He reminded Maryam that the scandal had not been as inconsequential as she believed.
The conversation eventually subsided after Maryam Nawaz stopped tweeting.
